CHAPTER I
At last,50a🚓 on reading the muddy message through,工字钢😷 the Doctor's excitement and enthusiasm knew no bounds. He began at once to make arrangements to leave the following day for a visit to the turtle.
One morning the Doctor was delighted to see his old friends the swallows gathering once more about his ship at anchor for their yearly flight to England. They asked him whether he too was returning; because if so,工字钢🌷 they said,工字钢🚋 they would accompany him,工字钢🔒 the same as they had done when he was escaping from the Kingdom of Jolliginki.
"I'll bet it's something to do with food,多重☁" said Too-Too,多重⚡ who was sitting on the stool next to the Doctor's,工字钢🏠 adding up figures.
"It changed my appearance completely. Moving through the long grass,多重👆 I looked like some ordinary kind of deer. So,多重🍝 disguised in this manner,工字钢📗 I sauntered out into an open meadow and grazed around till my precious Badamoshis should appear. Which they very shortly did.And while Quip had been waiting for this letter to be written he had filled in the time at Puddleby by gossiping with all the starlings and blackbirds in the Doctor's garden about the wonderful new Animals' post office on the island of No-Man's-Land. And pretty soon every creature in and around Puddleby had got to hear of it.
"I'll see what I can do for you,工字钢🐎 Doc,工字钢🍀" said the Sparrow,多重💈 "after I've taken a look around this 'eathen town of yours. But first I want a bath. I'm all heat up from flying under a broiling sun. Ain't you got no puddles round here for a bird to take a bath in?"
The Doctor comforted her as best he could,50a📞 saying that if he failed he would get her another husband,50a🍱 just as good. But she didn't seem to care for that idea and went on wailing,50a🍖 "Alas! Alas!"
"Ah,50a👼" said the gull,多重🍚 "for land weather I wouldn't be much help to you. But when it comes to the oceans,多重🍀 I know a bird who can tell you more about sea weather than any bureau ever knew."
"This she did,工字钢🎮 and the results were excellent. The rats departed in a body and the old horse's corn-bin was left undisturbed. Then she disappeared and for several nights I saw nothing of her. So one evening I thought it would be only decent of me to call at her farm down the Oxenthorpe Road,多重📴 to thank her.
And the frightened minister moved back among the crowd so the Doctor's evil gaze could not fall upon his face.But while the Doctor was still thanking the Chief for the beautiful present,50a✅ Quip-the-Carrier flew up with a letter for him.
"So,工字钢⚡ picking myself up wearily,多重👦 I started off for the miller's shop. On the threshold I paused a moment. It was a terrible step I was about to take. I gazed miserably down the street,多重⚠ thinking upon the hardness of life and the sadness of love,50a🔌 and there,多重🌠 coming toward me,多重🐘 with a bandage around his tail,工字钢📷 was my own brother!
"No,50a🆖 but his wife can,工字钢🕊" said Jip.
He agreed with the Doctor that the idea of a bird weather bureau was quite a possible thing and would lead to much better weather reports than had so far been possible. Then for a whole hour and a half he gave the Doctor a lecture on winds. Every word of this John Dolittle wrote down in a notebook.
"'Well,多重♎ it comes easy,工字钢💽' said George. 'Maybe there's not so much credit in it for that. But,50a🚏 tell me,50a🚟 do you make much money at this game?'
But the black men found the heavy uniforms dreadfully hot for Fantippo weather,工字钢👥 where they wear only a string of beads. And they left off the uniforms and wore only the caps. That is how the Fantippo postman's uniform came to be a smart cap,工字钢✉ a string of beads and a mail bag.Well,50a🍖 everyone in turn,多重⚓ the pushmi-pullyu,50a😳 Cheapside,工字钢🍎 Too-Too,工字钢😐 Quip-the-Carrier,50a🎈 all the swallows,50a🕊 any stray birds who were living in the neighborhood,50a😢 even a pair of rats who had taken up their residence in the houseboat,工字钢💠 were cross-examined by the Doctor or Speedy.
"With a thrill of triumph,50a💃 I dropped the precious ostrich skin before their very eyes into the swirling river,工字钢🍀 where it quickly disappeared from view. A howl of rage went up from the Badamoshis.
GUB-GUB'S STORY
"Yes,多重◻" said the Doctor. "I imagine there are lots of different kinds of birds and beasts in these parts that can be found nowhere else in the world."The morning sun peeping in at the window of the lighthouse found the Doctor still working over the keeper where he lay at the foot of the tower stairs.
"Humph!" said the Doctor,多重🎴 who had now got the loose tooth out and was showing the baby hippo how to rinse his mouth in the river. "I'm sorry. I suppose I should have sent you a message. But I've been so awfully busy. Let's go up under the shade of those palms and sit down. It was about the post office that I wanted to talk to you."
The Doctor told his pet he could be very proud of himself. For he was surely the only mouse in the world that ever won a war.
"The Cook Goblins were sorry to see him go. And as a farewell present in return for the help he had given them against their enemies,工字钢🍚 they gave him the Magic Cucumber. Now,多重🍌 this cucumber,多重㊗ if you cut off even the smallest part of it and planted it,多重🈁 would grow immediately into a whole field of any fruit or vegetable you wished. All you had to do was to say the name of the vegetable you wanted. The baby pig thanked the Cook Goblins,50a🌔 kissed them all goodby and went home."So presently,50a🔦 picking out the tree where I had seen the chief himself go and hide,工字钢🍁 I browsed along underneath it,多重💐 pretending I suspected nothing at all. Then when the chief dropped on what he thought was my hindquarters,多重📊 I struck upward with my other horns,工字钢🍑 hidden under the cowhide,多重💙 and gave him a jab he will remember the rest of his days.